Can Workouts Designed To Increase Testosterone Increase Muscle Mass?
October 24 2009
It has been shown that moderate to high volume workouts, using large muscle group exercises & short rest intervals cause an acute spike in testosterone levels.
Theoretically, these acute spikes in testosterone are claimed to increase muscle growth and strength.Let’s see what the evidence says:
Study 1
Injection of testosterone has shown to increase muscle mass & strength.
The increase in muscle & strength was also seen without any weight training exercise whatsoever.These studies clearly show the benefit of testosterone on muscle growth & strength.
Limitations: The studies we are talking about use supraphysiological doses of testosterone which are far greater & incomparable to the exercised-induced tiny spikes in testosterone.
Also exercised-induced testosterone spikes do not change the resting values of testosterone;it only lasts for 45-60 min.
Study 2
Suppression of testosterone has shown to decrease muscle mass & strength in weight training folks
Limitations: The suppressed levels of testosterone in the study reached the levels of hypogonadal individuals.
So the only sensible conclusion we can make from this study is that we need minimum levels of testosterone to maintain/or increase muscle mass & strength.
Study 3
Resistance training increases testosterone receptors
Limitations: That’s well and good, but it is yet to be shown that a workout program designed to increase testosterone is more effective in increasing these steroid receptors compared to a generic weight training workout.
We are also unsure if this increase in receptors contribute to a greater increase in strength and muscle mass.
Study 4
Combined leg & biceps training shows greater isometric strength in biceps compared to just biceps training.
Limitations: This study is some scientific proof to the anecdote of how squats can add inches to your arms. The study showed significant increases in testosterone and isometric strength when leg training was added to the arm training.
However, the study did not measure muscle size, the increase in isometric strength could have been due to neural adaptations, and the mean initial strength was higher in the arm group which skewed the results a bit.
Study 5
Increase in muscle & strength without any exercise- induced increase in testosterone.
Limitations: This study concluded that you only need basal levels of testosterone to promote muscle growth and strength increase.
But it does not reject the possibility that increase in exercise –induced testosterone levels could have increased the muscle growth & strength even further.
Conclusion
What it all means is that we are still not sure if workout routines specifically designed to increase testosterone are effective in increasing muscle and strength than the generic workout routines.
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